I understand Jean M showed him her book. If I am right on that then he should have a very up to date understanding of DNA evidence and not come out with ice age refugia stuff. However, I doubt he will do more than cite some recent studies etc and I cant imagine he will have new info. He might give an opinion on interpretation. I would expect him (and most archaeologists) to be a little troubled with the way R1b and beaker are now linked by some as traditionally this has not been seen as a particularly strong or migratory culture in Ireland. I would have a hunch he might lean towards first farmers in Ireland bringing R1b if he makes any comment at all. I also understand he isnt a fan of Celtic being spoken until late in the Bronze Age (say 1000BC give or take) but I am not sure what his latest view is on this. It wont be the last word (there never will be) on the subject but his knowledge as an archaeologist, linguist, anthropologist etc is bordering on unique in this field so his opinions need to be taken seriously indeed.

I also saw the genetic section of his forthcoming book on the Irish before final stage. Since he not a geneticist, of course he is reliant on what geneticists have published. It is no use expecting ancient DNA to be pulled out of the bag or any amazing new revelations. The impression I got though was of a highly readable presentation and his usual sceptical intelligence being brought to bear on all material. I expect this book to fly off the shelves.

1) Mesolithic Hunter/Gatherer (probably from the Continent through Britain)2) Neolithic Danubian Farmer (probably from Brittany and the Netherlands through Britain)3) Bronze Age Meatallurgist (probably from the Balkans by way of the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay)

On #3, I believe some entered southeastern France and spread through the country to the Atlantic coast.

Amazon as they have dispatched my copy so should have in next couple of days

It seems it isn't available for despatch with Amazon UK until 21st January

I was initially told that then a day later got an email saying it could be dispatched sooner than thought and I got a final email a couple of days ago saying it was dispatched. I probably would have it in my hands now if I hadnt gone for the free but slower option.

1) Mesolithic Hunter/Gatherer (probably from the Continent through Britain)2) Neolithic Danubian Farmer (probably from Brittany and the Netherlands through Britain)3) Bronze Age Meatallurgist (probably from the Balkans by way of the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay)

On #3, I believe some entered southeastern France and spread through the country to the Atlantic coast.

Hibernia est omnis divisa in partes tres :)

Miles - I think I would agree. I think the Autosomal DNA is largely the first two. The yDNA probably relates mainly to the third but I dont think there is quite enough evidence to 100% rule out the second being the big one given Ireland was only settled by farmers about 3800BC and given the uncertainty about variance dating.

Dienekes has 17 Irish participants in his "Irish_D" group. The breakdown of three major components is the following:

North_European: 59.1%

Mediterranean: 33.7%

West_Asian: 6.2%

That adds up to 99%, the remaining 1 percentage consists of 0.6% South_Asian and 0.4% "Amerindian". Some of that could be spurious.

Of course what's interesting is that the French_Basque shows up as 0.2% West_Asian, compared to 7.4% for French_D and 5.1% for Spanish_D -- seperate "Spaniards" group was 7.1% West_Asian.

I myself show up with following components in my autosomal.

North_European: 54.1%

Mediterranean: 33.5%

West_Asian: 9.4%

South_Asian: 2.2%

Amerindian: 0.9%

"North_European" looks likes it's probably the mesolithic component in Ireland and across Northern Europe. "Mediterranean" is probably showing the arrival of argiculture whereas "West Asian" is either connected to metal or more specifically Indo-Europeans (the lack of it among Basques is interesting in this regard)

Awh well until we get some ancient DNA from Ireland it's gonna be a guessing game.

Dienekes has 17 Irish participants in his "Irish_D" group. The breakdown of three major components is the following:

North_European: 59.1%

Mediterranean: 33.7%

West_Asian: 6.2%

That adds up to 99%, the remaining 1 percentage consists of 0.6% South_Asian and 0.4% "Amerindian". Some of that could be spurious.

Of course what's interesting is that the French_Basque shows up as 0.2% West_Asian, compared to 7.4% for French_D and 5.1% for Spanish_D -- seperate "Spaniards" group was 7.1% West_Asian.

I myself show up with following components in my autosomal.

North_European: 54.1%

Mediterranean: 33.5%

West_Asian: 9.4%

South_Asian: 2.2%

Amerindian: 0.9%

"North_European" looks likes it's probably the mesolithic component in Ireland and across Northern Europe. "Mediterranean" is probably showing the arrival of argiculture whereas "West Asian" is either connected to metal or more specifically Indo-Europeans (the lack of it among Basques is interesting in this regard)

Awh well until we get some ancient DNA from Ireland it's gonna be a guessing game.

-Paul(DF41+)

I'm not all Irish (25%) French-Canadian, but I have a higher West Asian score than average for Irish or French. On Eurogenes, there is one woman from Leinster who often has West Asian scores similar to mine. I often search results for similar scores in Western Europe and it seems that a few in the Netherlands, Cornwall and Southern Germany had high scores. It seems to me that the West Asian score is Danubian.

I think a lot of Hg G came to Western Europe through that route, and I believe that Hg G also has a vacant spot around the Basque country.

I think maybe the West Asian score represents Neolithic Farmers by way of the Danube.

rms2 (and Alan), thanks for the heads up. I ordered it today. Amazon.com quoted April delivery and Amazon.co.uk quoted January. Pity it's not available on Kindle. I suppose he will defend the Steppes model for PIE, which is fine as he is one of the leading proponents. I enjoy both his and Renfrew's debate on the subject. It will be interesting to see how he describes the expansion of R1b (out of Anatolia, M269 ?) and the meeting of R1b and R1a PIE ( in the Balkens, L23 ?) and the expansion of Bell Beakers (Iberia L11, P312 ?). I hope he and other authors have anticipated future updates in electronic format eg Kindle or online in order to quickly integrate new results such as Geno 2.0 and BEAN.

My Ancestry 2.0 results were close to the reference population for UK and Irish (I guess Irish).

A while back I sent Doug McDonald my half maternal brothers U106 23andme data and he said, "Extremely aggressively Belgian in my new program ... never seen one like it! Yet the S. Asian in the above is puzzling, as the new program does not see it.

It does seem possible to fit it as 80% Orkney 20% Jewish, which of course average Belgium.

Dienekes has 17 Irish participants in his "Irish_D" group. The breakdown of three major components is the following:

North_European: 59.1%

Mediterranean: 33.7%

West_Asian: 6.2%

That adds up to 99%, the remaining 1 percentage consists of 0.6% South_Asian and 0.4% "Amerindian". Some of that could be spurious.

Of course what's interesting is that the French_Basque shows up as 0.2% West_Asian, compared to 7.4% for French_D and 5.1% for Spanish_D -- seperate "Spaniards" group was 7.1% West_Asian.

I myself show up with following components in my autosomal.

North_European: 54.1%

Mediterranean: 33.5%

West_Asian: 9.4%

South_Asian: 2.2%

Amerindian: 0.9%

"North_European" looks likes it's probably the mesolithic component in Ireland and across Northern Europe. "Mediterranean" is probably showing the arrival of argiculture whereas "West Asian" is either connected to metal or more specifically Indo-Europeans (the lack of it among Basques is interesting in this regard)

Awh well until we get some ancient DNA from Ireland it's gonna be a guessing game.

-Paul(DF41+)

I'm not all Irish (25%) French-Canadian, but I have a higher West Asian score than average for Irish or French. On Eurogenes, there is one woman from Leinster who often has West Asian scores similar to mine. I often search results for similar scores in Western Europe and it seems that a few in the Netherlands, Cornwall and Southern Germany had high scores. It seems to me that the West Asian score is Danubian.

I think a lot of Hg G came to Western Europe through that route, and I believe that Hg G also has a vacant spot around the Basque country.

I think maybe the West Asian score represents Neolithic Farmers by way of the Danube.

Kehoe (DF23+)

Miles,

I'll need to dig into Dienekes posts but I believe he ran both the iceman (Ötzi) and the scandinavian neolithic + mesolithic and they all came up as 0% West-Asian. Ötzi had next to no "West Asian" component which in European populations is only seen in Sardinians and Basques. On a plot the sardianians actually plotted in middle between Ötzi and other Europeans (no doubt as they have admixture over last couple thousand years from mainland Europe).

Personally my feeling is that Basque is either a neolithic or Copper age language, after all it contains native words for metals (not borrowed from Indo-European), given their high levels of "Southern European" and connections showing to Sardianians it's fairly obvious that they aren't some sort of mesolithic "relic population"

Chapter 8 (28 pages) Blood, Skulls and Genes deals with the DNA evidence of Origins of the Irish. There is a helpful 13 page preview on Amazon.co.uk which includes an interesting analysis of the mtDNA evidence.